Natasha Romanoff never thought she would have spent her first mission working for SHIELD in Las Vegas, but here she was, admiring the city from the lofty viewpoint of the Stratosphere. She could see why this hotel was so popular. You could see the whole city from up there. Buildings glimmered brightly in the setting sun, and cars flowed like streams across the streets.

She liked the city. The way the Americans managed to build all of it was impressive. She didn’t, however, like the people in it. She just didn’t like gamblers. She had wished that the target had picked anywhere else to stay. She had to go on with it though.

The target’s name was Tony Masters. He was a former agent of SHIELD. However, he defected, and took several top-secret documents with him, namely, the location of undercover agents imbedded in foreign governments. Masters planned to sell it off to a buyer at the MGM GRAND hotel. She had to intercept the documents and get them back to their rightful place before that happened. If she got lucky, she could capture Masters as well.

She turned around and walked towards the elevator. After an uneventful departure from the hotel, she walked onto the strip and made for the MGM GRAND. The sun was setting behind the tall buildings lining The Strip. It would be night soon. She liked that. Covert operations always went better when there were less people around to notice it. She also loved the smell of the fresh night air.

She walked into the hotel. It didn’t take long to find the casino area. Hotels went out of their way to make the gambling areas bright and obvious for people passing though. Now she only had to find Masters. She pulled out her phone and looked at the picture SHIELD had given her of him.

Tony Masters was a white male, mid-30s, with brown eyes, black hair and beard, with a small scar running down his left cheek, and he was very muscular. He had previously worked for SHIELD under the code name “Taskmaster,” given for his flawless record of successful missions. He had even mentored Natasha for a while. She gave him that scar. It was a surprise to everyone when he betrayed them and made off with as many top-secret files he could carry.

He had to be stopped.

She poked around the casino for a while until she saw him sitting at a poker table, a silver suitcase nearby on the ground by his chair.

“Bingo.” She said under her breath. Now she just had to figure out a way to get the suitcase away from Masters.

She began to approach when another man approached the table and took the seat right next to Masters. He looked German, late-50s, receding gray hairline. He turned and began talking to Masters. 

“The buyer.” She thought. She tried to hear what they were talking about but couldn’t get closer and risk Masters spotting her. He would recognize Natasha immediately.

The buyer had his own suitcase, presumably with the payment. It looked almost like the other one. Her suspicions of the suitcase holding the money were confirmed when the buyer handed it to Masters, who opened it and looked inside, then closed it again almost as quickly. He looked at the buyer and nodded.

She tried to think of what to do. She put on a pair of dark sunglasses and took action. The two exchanged suitcases and parted ways. She followed the buyer. She approached him slowly, thinking out her next move. After thinking about it, she then bumped into him.

The two fell to the floor. The suitcase hit the ground with a thud and opened, papers flying everywhere. While the buyer was still recovering from the fall. She quickly scooped up the files, hid them in her coat, and closed the suitcase. The buyer got up, clearly annoyed, but seemingly unaware the files weren’t in the suitcase.

“Oh my. I’m so sorry, sir. I can really be clumsy sometimes.” She said, helping him up.

“Pay better attention to your surroundings, fräulein. I don’t want zis to happen again.” He stumbled to his feet. “Now give me back my suitcase.”

She did as she was told and gave him the suitcase. The empty suitcase. The buyer walked off, obviously annoyed, and unaware that the contents of his luggage were gone.

Natasha left the hotel and walked down the strip. The documents were safely back in her hands, and the information was still a secret. The moon was high in the sky now, and the sidewalks and streets were far less crowded at this time of night, with only a few people or cars going up and down the strip.

She only wished she could have captured Masters as well. “Another time.” She thought.

“Fräulein!” A voice called out from behind her. “I believe you have something zat belongs to me!”

Natasha whirled around to see the buyer standing halfway down the street. He wasn’t close, but he was close enough that she could see his ugly frowning face. Beside him stood a man in a dark blue hood and a skull mask.

She had read the files of Tony Masters before the mission, and attached to it were two pictures. One was of him without a skull mask on and the other was. The man next to the buyer had a mask just like it.

On top of that, he also had a sword on his hip. He unsheathed it and raised it high above his head. He had something on his back, too. It was a SHIELD-issue combat jetpack. He leaned forward and used it to thrust himself at her.

She dodged out of the way as he flew past her, nearly hitting her. He barreled past her and further down the boulevard sidewalk. He was fast. She was faster.

However, that still didn’t stop Taskmaster from trying to kill her. He put his boots on the ground and faced her down, his boots kicking up a dust trail from skidding across the pavement. Even through the mask, his glare bore straight into her.

Whatever bystanders were still out at this time of night had backed off to a safe distance. Whatever traffic was left had stopped entirely, drivers either fleeing in terror from the fight or stopping to watch it happen.

Taskmaster tried another fly-by. Natasha rolled out of the way to avoid the swing of his blade, only for her to be grabbed by his free hand. Taskmaster flew up almost a hundred feet into the air.

He looked down at her. He was holding her by her coat collar.

His mask did little to hide his rage beneath it. He spoke.

“I could drop you right now, and that would be the end of it. I could kill you simply by letting go…” he paused to chuckle at the thought. “But where’s the fun in that?”

She looked up at him. She was afraid, but she had been trained for years never to show it.

He went on. “If I’m going to kill you, I’m at least going to give you a fighting chance.” He flew back towards the ground and landed in the middle of the street. Natasha was much less gracefully thrown onto the hard asphalt.

She staggered to her feet, disoriented from the flight. Taskmaster threw off his jetpack, which landed on the street. He had his sword gripped tightly in his palms.

Natasha had some tricks of her own, however, courtesy of the SHIELD weapons officer. She threw off her coat, which also landed on the street. It revealed two wristband-like devices strapped just above her wrists. She wore a sleek black outfit designed for combat.

Their official name was the “WB-14 Electric Shock Wrist Blaster.” She had nicknamed it “Widow’s Bite.” They weren’t exactly field-tested, but she sure hoped they’d work. If they didn’t, she always had her pistols strapped to her hip holsters.

The fight lasted two minutes, with the two attacking each other, landing some blows, and missing others. Several times, Natasha narrowly dodged the swing of Taskmaster’s sword. The fight suddenly ended when Natasha leapt over him, wrapped her legs around his neck, forced him downward and smashed his face into the ground.

Taskmaster took a good moment to recover. He lay on the ground, his mask had cracked, and half of it had fallen off, revealing his bloodied face.

He spit out blood and started to talk, most likely some stuff about how he wasn’t down yet. The words never left his mouth. She zapped him unconscious.

She smirked a little. That was satisfying. She looked around for her coat, so she could get the files back. It was gone, and she remembered one crucial detail she forgot. The Buyer. He must have taken it while the fight was happening.

It didn’t take long for her to find him. The coat was flailing behind him as he ran through Vegas and into an alleyway. She caught up with him quickly, for she was much faster than he was.

“It doesn’t have to go like this!” She called out from behind him. The buyer stopped, panting heavily from the running. He turned around and pulled a gun on her.

“It appears I have underestimated you, fräulein!” He said, with a hideous grin plastered on his face. “But I doubt zat even you are bulletproof.”

In the hand that wasn’t holding the gun, he held the coat with all the files in it. He shook it at her. “You want zis? Too bad! It is mine now!” Natasha just stood there, afraid to move. If she did, the buyer would shoot her instantly. She was fast, but not bullet-dodging fast. Her best hope was that the Buyer had what some SHIELD agents called “Stormtrooper Aim.”

“Well, zis has been fun, but I must be going now. I have a job to do, after all.” He chuckled a little before starting to back up towards the end of the alley, never taking his gaze off her.

Suddenly, an arrow flew down from above and hit the buyer right in the shoulder. He screamed in pain, turning to see where the arrow had come from, taking his gaze off Natasha in the process. She made her move.

She swept his legs out from under him, and he hit the ground with a thud. Not stopping to check if he was unconscious already, she got on top of him and punched in square in the face.

Blood sprayed from his nose, and he yelped in pain briefly before losing consciousness. She looked up at the roof where the arrow had flown. A tall silhouette stood on the rooftops. She smirked.

“You can come down now, Clint! He’s out!”

Hawkeye, better known as Clint Barton, rappelled down from the building and hit the ground a few feet in front of her. He had a similar body build to Taskmaster. He wore black leather armor and equally black goggles. He had short-cut blonde hair, and underneath the goggles were beautiful brown eyes.

He started talking. “Seems like you had quite the adventure.” He looked down at the limp body of the buyer, his arrow still firmly lodged in the buyer’s shoulder.

“Well, I’ve heard Las Vegas is a place to do a lot of living in a little bit of time, and I lived a lot.” Natasha replied.

Both earpieces buzzed simultaneously. A low voice spoke. “They also say that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but the press won’t let it stay there for long!” It was Nick Fury.

Fury was a somewhat cranky, dark-skinned, bald general of SHIELD. He had an eyepatch over his left eye. According to him, his eye was badly damaged by an acid burn, and that’s what the eyepatch covered, but nobody ever bothered to look.

“Shame you’re coming in just now!” Natasha said. “You missed all the fun!”

“I saw as much as I needed to see from behind my desk, thank you very much.” Fury replied. “Anyway, SHIELD cleanup crews are coming to fix your mess. Extraction teams are also on their way in choppers. I suggest you find one so we can get your asses back up here and debrief the two of you.”

“Alright, alright. We’re coming!” Natasha turned off her earpiece and sighed. She looked at Clint and shrugged. “No rest for the weary, I guess.” Clint nodded and gave her a look that said whelp, what can we do? 

They walked out of the alley and back onto the street. Already they could see the cleanup crews mopping up the mess left by Natasha’s fight with Taskmaster, who was now awake, in handcuffs and being shoved into a helicopter by two muscular SHIELD agents. He turned to glare at her before the helicopter doors closed. If looks could kill, Natasha would be dead.

She felt no pity for him. She felt pity for some people she had to track down and neutralize before. Not him. He had chosen his side. Another pair of agents were dragging the unconscious buyer out of the alley by his feet and threw him into the same helicopter. He would be fun to interrogate later.

They sat down in a separate helicopter, which took off almost as soon as they were inside. Clint looked at her.

“You know, there’s a great restaurant a little way down the street here. Best shawarma I’ve ever had. Maybe we could go there for a bite after the debrief?” He suggested.

Natasha sat and thought about it. “Is this a date?”

Clint blushed slightly. Even in the poorly lit helicopter cabin, at night, Natasha could still see it.

“Well… maybe it is. Who knows…? Want to find out?” Clint asked, caution in his voice. Any experienced SHIELD operative knew not to push Natasha too hard.

Natasha paused to consider the offer some more.

The helicopter landed on the deck of the SHIELD helicarrier. The helicarrier was a flying aircraft carrier elevated by massive engines. The physics of the titanic airship made her head hurt to try and understand. Nick Fury stood there on the deck, flanked by a pair of agents, waiting patiently.

She grunted and stood up.

“Ah, what the hell? I could use a break. Besides, I’ve never tried shawarma before. Could be fun.”

Clint smiled. The two walked off towards Fury. He had heard everything over the radio.

He carefully studied the two before grinning. Then he spoke.

“Well, it’s about damn time!”

The group then walked off towards the rest of the moonlit helicarrier…